Suddenly through this chaos of Spiritual, Religious, Ecstatic, Super-Egotistic whirl of confused thought, darted a gleam of Common, Ordinary Horse Sense! John Gale saw it illumine her blue eyes, and trembled.

God in Mercy! If it came to THAT! "Sit down, John," she said calmly.

Then, in her sweet, clear voice, she said: "Did it ever occur to you, dearest, that a more ridiculous, unconvincing, purposeless, insane, God-forsaken idiot than you never existed?
That you eclipse the wildest dreams of insanity?
That you are a mental and moral 'What-is-it ?'" "It has occurred to me," he replied simply.

"I began life with vast asinine possibilities which fall to the lot of few men; yet I cannot say that I have carried even THEM to a logical conclusion! But YOU, love! YOU, darling! conceived in extravagance, born to impossibility, a challenge to credulity, a problem to the intellect, a 'missing word' for all ages,--are you aware of any one as utterly unsympathetic, unreal, and untrue to nature as you are, existing on the face of the earth, or in the waters under the earth ?" "You are right, dearest; there are none," she returned with the same calm, level voice.

"It is true that I have at times tried to do something real and womanly, and not, you know, merely to complicate a--a"-- her voice faltered--"theatrical situation--but I couldn't! Something impelled me otherwise.